1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a storage apparatus for a vehicle, which has a lid rotatable about a pivot, such as a glove box provided on an instrument panel of the vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
In many storage apparatuses for vehicles, such as glove boxes, there are provided damper devices in order to restrain sudden rotation of a lid by its own weight. As the damper device of this type, a damper of air system as shown in JP-UM-A-5-76894, for example, has been proposed.
The conventional damper device of this type, though not specifically illustrated herein, mainly includes three components, namely, a cylinder, a piston, and a pulling wire. The piston provided with a seal ring on its periphery is slidably contained in a cylinder and urged by a compressive coil spring in one direction. Meanwhile, a guide cap is fitted to an opening of the cylinder at its front side, and one end of the pulling wire which is arranged in a desired direction is connected to the piston, by way of the guide cap, inside the cylinder.
Moreover, a back wall having a cylindrical part and an air port is integrally formed with a backward end part of the cylinder. In the cylindrical part of the back wall, a seat valve formed with an orifice, a backup spring, and an air filter are arranged in this order, and a side of the air filter is retained by a retainer having an opening.
The damper device having the above described structure is mounted on the vehicle in such a manner that the cylinder is fixed to either one of the glove box side and the instrument panel side, and the other end of the pulling wire which has been arranged by way of the aforesaid guide cap is fixed to the other side. Then, on occasion of actual operation, by rotating the glove box in an opening direction utilizing its own weight, the pulling wire is pulled outwardly from the cylinder, and accordingly, the piston will be slid toward the guide cap against an urging pressure of the compressive coil spring, thereby to permit the glove box to rotate.
However, while the glove box rotates, air will be sucked in from minute holes of the air filter, according to the sliding motion of the piston, through the orifice of the seat valve into the cylinder. Because negative pressure will be formed inside the cylinder and damping force will be exerted on the sliding motion of the piston, an opening motion of the glove box will be controlled, ensuring that the glove box will be slowly rotated in the opening direction.
However, the lid of the glove box is generally kept in almost upright position in a completely closed state, and has its center of gravity positioned above a rotation pivot. The center of gravity will move, along with the opening motion, in a direction away from a vertical line passing the rotation pivot. Accordingly, when the lid conducts the opening motion from the completely closed state to a fully opened state, the rotation moment of the lid by its own weight has been small at the beginning of the opening motion, and thereafter, becomes gradually larger.
Therefore, in order to open the lid at a fixed speed, it is necessary to control the damping force by the damping device so that the damping force may become gradually larger according to the opening motion of the lid.
In JP-UM-A-62-43847, in order to control the damping force of the damper device, attention has been paid to an orbit of a pivotal point (a connecting point) of a rod transmitting the damping force of the damper device, with respect to the lied, and there is disclosed such a structure that a tangent line is drawn at an intermediate position of an arc-shaped orbit of the rod from the completely closed state to the fully opened state of the lid, and a pivotal point (a mounting point) of the damper device with respect to the glove box is positioned on the tangent line.
However, as the structure described in JP-UM-A-62-43847, the mounting position of the damper device has been determined, only from a viewpoint of controlling the damping force, and freeness of designing the glove box has been restricted. Specifically, a size, a shape, and assembling position of the glove box have been severely designed in adjustment relative to various other components to be incorporated into the instrument panel of the vehicle. Under the circumstances, it is desirable that the mounting position of the damper device too can be flexibly subjected to change of design, while adjustment is made with respect to these components in the surroundings.